Project description:Many ground-nesting bird species are suffering from habitat loss and population decline. Data on population ecology and demography in colonies of threatened species are thus essential for designing effective conservation protocols. Here, we used extensive ringing and observation data to estimate directly, for the first time, the survival rate of juvenile and adult Little Tern (Sternula albifrons), as well as testing for a possible effect of age on probability of survival. We estimated adult annual survival rate to be 0.77, and juvenile (first year) survival to be 0.49 with a possible linear decrease in the survival rate of the juveniles that ranged from 0.681 to 0.327. We found no evidence that survival was age-dependent among the early age classes after the first year. We discuss these findings in light of survival estimates for other species, and their implications for the Little Tern conservation.
Project description:Saccharomonospora azurea Runmao et al. 1987 is a member of the genus Saccharomonospora, which is in the family Pseudonocardiaceae and thus far poorly characterized genomically. Members of the genus Saccharomonospora are of interest because they originate from diverse habitats, such as leaf litter, manure, compost, the surface of peat, and moist and over-heated grain, and may play a role in the primary degradation of plant material by attacking hemicellulose. Next to S. viridis, S. azurea is only the second member in the genus Saccharomonospora for which a completely sequenced type strain genome will be published. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence with project status 'Improved high quality draft', and the annotation. The 4,763,832 bp long chromosome with its 4,472 protein-coding and 58 RNA genes was sequenced as part of the DOE funded Community Sequencing Program (CSP) 2010 at the Joint Genome Institute (JGI).
